PART V: Quantum Mechanics
The goal of these lectures is to help you start to comprehend the quantum world and some of its strange behaviors. This is a bit of a step into the unknown, as should already be evident, and our classical intuition will not serve us well in the quantum world. Luckily for us, the language of mathematics describes the quantum world remarkably well for reasons that we still do not fully comprehend. Throughout these lectures, we will adopt an approach that embraces this mathematical description and uses it to develop a fresh sense of how the universe actually functions.
Contents:
The Fundamental Ideas of Quantum Mechanics
A Quantum Particle in One Dimension
Postulates of Quantum Mechanics
The One-dimensional Harmonic Oscillator
Quantum Interpretations
Transformations and Symmetries
Rotation Invariance and Angular Momentum
Electron spin
Addition of Angular Momentum
Approximation Methods
Atoms
Atoms in Electromagnetic Fields
Time-Dependent Perturbation Theory
Scattering Theory
These lecture notes are far from original. They borrow heavily from the following references:
1. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, By David J. Griffiths.
2. Quantum Physics, By Stephen Gasiorowics.
3. Principles of Quantum Mechanics, By R. Shanker
4. Quantum Mechanics, By Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu, Frank Laloe.
5. Concepts of Modern Physics, By Arthur Beiser.
6. David Tong: Lectures on Theoretical Physics